A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
wood. From this hiding-place we saw both men and women hunted
by the mob. The fearful work went on until nearly dawn. Then,
the fire being out and the storm spent, the voices and flying
footsteps presently ceased, and darkness and stillness reigned again.
We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and although we were
worn out and sleepy, we kept on until we had put this place some
miles behind us. Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal
burner, and got what was to be had. A woman was up and about, but
the man was still asleep, on a straw shake-down, on the clay floor.
The woman seemed uneasy until I explained that we were travelers
and had lost our way and been wandering in the woods all night.
She became talkative, then, and asked if we had heard of the
terrible goings-on at the manor-house of Abblasoure. Yes, we had
heard of them, but what we wanted now was rest and sleep. The
king broke in:
“Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be perilous
company, being late come from people that died of the Spotted Death.”
It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the commonest decorations
of the nation was the waffle-iron face. I had early noticed that
the woman and her husband were both so decorated. She made us
entirely welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was immensely
impressed by the king's proposition; for, of course, it was a good
deal of an event in her life to run across a person of the king's
humble appearance who was ready to buy a man's house for the sake
of a night's lodging. It gave her a large respect for us, and she
strained the lean possibilities of her hovel to the utmost to make
us comfortable.
We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough to
make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularly
as it was scant in quantity. And also in variety; it consisted
solely of onions, salt, and the national black bread made out of
horse-feed. The woman told us about the affair of the evening
before. At ten or eleven at night, when everybody was in bed,
the manor-house burst into flames. The country-side swarmed to
the rescue, and the family were saved, with one exception, the
master. He did not appear. Everybody was frantic over this loss,
and two brave yeomen sacrificed their lives in ransacking the
burning house seeking that valuable personage. But after a while
he was found--what was left of him--which was his corpse. It was
in a copse three hundred yards away, bound, gagged, stabbed in a
dozen places.
Who had done this? Suspicion fell upon a humble family in the
neighborhood who had been lately treated with peculiar harshness
by the baron; and from these people the suspicion easily extended
itself to their relatives and familiars. A suspicion was enough;
my lord's liveried retainers proclaimed an instant crusade against
these people, and were promptly joined by the community in general.
The woman's husband had been active with the mob, and had not
returned home until nearly dawn. He was gone now to find out
what the general result had been. While we were still talking he
came back from his quest. His report was revolting enough. Eighteen
persons hanged or butchered, and two yeomen and thirteen prisoners
lost in the fire.
“And how many prisoners were there altogether in the vaults?”
“Thirteen.”
“Then every one of them was lost?”
“Yes, all.”
“But the people arrived in time to save the family; how is it they
could save none of the prisoners?”
The man looked puzzled, and said:
“Would one unlock the vaults at such a time? Marry, some would
have escaped.”
“Then you mean that nobody _did_ unlock them?”
“None went near them, either to lock or unlock. It standeth to
reason that the bolts were fast; wherefore it was only needful
to establish a watch, so that if any broke the bonds he might not
escape, but be taken. None were taken.”
“Natheless, three did escape,” said the king, “and ye will do well
to publish it and set justice upon their track, for these murthered
the baron and fired the house.”
I was just expecting he would come out with that. For a moment
the man and his wife showed an eager interest in this news and
an impatience to go out and spread it; then a sudden something
else betrayed itself in their faces, and they began to ask questions.
I answered the questions myself, and narrowly watched the effects
produced. I was soon satisfied that the knowledge of who these
three prisoners were had somehow changed the atmosphere; that
our hosts' continued eagerness to go and spread the news was now
only pretended and not real. The king did not notice the change,
and I was glad of that. I worked the conversation around toward
other details of the night's proceedings, and noted that these
people were relieved to have it take that direction.
The painful thing observable about all this business was the
alacrity with which this oppressed community had turned their
cruel hands against their own class in the interest of the common
oppressor. This man and woman seemed to feel that in a quarrel
between a person of their own class and his lord, it was the natural
and proper and rightful thing for that poor devil's whole caste
to side with the master and fight his battle for him, without ever
stopping to inquire into the rights or wrongs of the matter. This
man had been out helping to hang his neighbors, and had done his
work with zeal, and yet was aware that there was nothing against
them but a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it describable
as evidence, still neither he nor his wife seemed to see anything
horrible about it.
This was depressing--to a man with the dream of a republic in his
head. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when
the “poor whites” of our South who were always despised and
frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed
their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their
midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lords
in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of
slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out
their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very
institution which degraded them. And there was only one redeeming
feature connected with that pitiful piece of history; and that was,
that secretly the “poor white” did detest the slave-lord, and did
feel his own shame. That feeling was not brought to the surface,
but the fact that it was there and could have been brought out,
under favoring circumstances, was something--in fact, it was enough;
for it showed that a man is at bottom a man, after all, even if it
doesn't show on the outside.
Well, as it turned out, this charcoal burner was just the twin of
the Southern “poor white” of the far future. The king presently
showed impatience, and said:
“An ye prattle here all the day, justice will miscarry. Think ye
the criminals will abide in their father's house? They are fleeing,
they are not waiting. You should look to it that a party of horse
be set upon their track.”
The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, and the man looked
flustered and irresolute. I said:
“Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you, and explain which
direction I think they would try to take. If they were merely
resisters of the gabelle or some kindred absurdity I would try
to protect them from capture; but when men murder a person of
high degree and likewise burn his house, that is another matter.”
The last remark was for the king--to quiet him. On the road
the man pulled his resolution together, and began the march with
a steady gait, but there was no eagerness in it. By and by I said:
“What relation were these men to you--cousins?”
He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let him, and
stopped, trembling.
“Ah, my God, how know ye that?”
“I didn't know it; it was a chance guess.”
“Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too.”
“Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?”
He didn't quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:
“Ye-s.”
“Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!”
It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.
“Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that ye
would not betray me an I failed of my duty.”
“Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to keep
still and let those men get away. They've done a righteous deed.”
He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension at the
same time. He looked up and down the road to see that no one
was coming, and then said in a cautious voice:
“From what land come you, brother, that you speak such perilous
words, and seem not to be afraid?”
“They are not perilous words when spoken to one of my own caste,
I take it. You would not tell anybody I said them?”
“I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses first.”
“Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears of your repeating
it. I think devil's work has been done last night upon those
innocent poor people. That old baron got only what he deserved.
If I had my way, all his kind should have the same luck.”
Fear and depression vanished from the man's manner, and gratefulness
and a brave animation took their place:
“Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap for my undoing,
yet are they such refreshment that to hear them again and others
like to them, I would go to the gallows happy, as having had one
good feast at least in a starved life. And I will say my say now,
and ye may report it if ye be so minded. I helped to hang my
neighbors for that it were peril to my own life to show lack of
zeal in the master's cause; the others helped for none other reason.
All rejoice to-day that he is dead, but all do go about seemingly
sorrowing, and shedding the hypocrite's tear, for in that lies
safety. I have said the words, I have said the words! the only
ones that have ever tasted good in my mouth, and the reward of
that taste is sufficient. Lead on, an ye will, be it even to the
scaffold, for I am ready.”
There it was, you see. A man is a man, at bottom. Whole ages
of abuse and oppression cannot crush the manhood clear out of him.
Whoever thinks it a mistake is himself mistaken. Yes, there is
plenty good enough material for a republic in the most degraded
people that ever existed--even the Russians; plenty of manhood
in them--even in the Germans--if one could but force it out of
its timid and suspicious privacy, to overthrow and trample in the
mud any throne that ever was set up and any nobility that ever
supported it. We should see certain things yet, let us hope and
believe. First, a modified monarchy, till Arthur's days were done,
then the destruction of the throne, nobility abolished, every
member of it bound out to some useful trade, universal suffrage
instituted, and the whole government placed in the hands of the
men and women of the nation there to remain. Yes, there was no
occasion to give up my dream yet a while.
CHAPTER XXXI
MARCO
We strolled along in a sufficiently indolent fashion now, and
talked. We must dispose of about the amount of time it ought
to take to go to the little hamlet of Abblasoure and put justice
on the track of those murderers and get back home again. And
meantime I had an auxiliary interest which had never paled yet,
never lost its novelty for me since I had been in Arthur's kingdom:
the behavior--born of nice and exact subdivisions of caste--of chance
passers-by toward each other. Toward the shaven monk who trudged
along with his cowl tilted back and the sweat washing down his
fat jowls, the coal-burner was deeply reverent; to the gentleman